Rise in Google user data requests

Google released its biannual transparency report last week, which details requests government agencies around the world make for user data from Google as well as demands to remove content from its services.

In short, the sort of private information about a person that takes more than googling their name to discover.

The most recent report on user data requests includes information on 31 countries including Australia, the United States, Britain, France, India, Russia and Brazil.

In total, these countries made 20,938 requests for data from 34,614 Google account holders in the first half of this year, up from 18,257 requests for 28,562 users in the second half of 2011.

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Almost two out of every five requests were from the United States. Google received 7969 requests for data on 16,281 users from US authorities, of which 90 per cent were granted, more than any other country.

Turkey, Hungary and Russia made 112, 92 and 58 requests, respectively, but Google complied with none of them.

Australian government agencies made 523 requests for data from 841 Gmail and YouTube users in the first half of this year, compared with 444 requests for data from 496 users the second half of 2011.

Google complied with 64 per cent of requests from Australian agencies, down one per cent on the second half of last year.

User data requests in Australia have increased year on year since Google started its transparency reports, climbing from 155 in the second half of 2009.

Of the 16 countries who have had their data disclosed since the first report, seven – including Australia - have seen year on year increases in the number of takedown requests with each report. Authorities in the US, Germany, France, India, Japan and Belgium also have an increasing appetite for Google user data.

Australia has seen a 237 per cent increase in the number of requests since the Google started the transparency reports, one of the highest increases of any country.

We’ve taken the data and put it in a Tableau Public dashboard, which lets you see how the number of requests from different countries have changed over time.